Jackie hugged her anger at Steven's high-handed ways close to her. She reminded herself how he had manhandled her and abducted her barefoot and in her pyjamas. Thank God she hadn't been wearing the T-shirt he gave her, which was her usual sleeping apparel. She would not allow the fact that his touch had sent shivers through her body or the way he smelled so good, all beer and smoke and Steven, sway her from her righteous indignation.
"Where are you taking me," she said curtly. He did not reply, feeding her nervousness. What was he so angry about? Actually, that was a good question. "Why are you angry with me?"
The car pulled up at the reservoir, one of their prime making out spots in days past. A full moon lit up the water into a silver splendor. Steven turned to face her, noting how she held her body away from him as if afraid of his touch.
"How the hell could you say I stole your heart and never gave a damn about you?" he exploded.
"What? How could you possibly know I said that?"
"That's not the point," Hyde rebutted, hastily avoiding that issue. "Damn it, Jackie! You know damn well how I feel about you."
Jackie's heart skipped a beat at his use of the present tense. "Actually, I don't. I can count on one hand the number of times you've said you loved me. I don't even need all the fingers."
"What does it matter how many times I said it?" Hyde argued. "The fact that I said it at all is what counts. You know I'm not the kind of guy who tells someone they… who uses that word."
"Then what kind of guy are you?" Jackie replied. "I used to not mind that you couldn't say what I wanted so much to hear. I'd tell myself that what counted was how your actions told me how much you loved me."
"Exactly," Hyde agreed. "Like when I shaved off my beard, or went to those stupid dances with you."
"Yes. That first year we were together – we had some rocky moments but we'd come through them all stronger, our feelings for each other deeper. But then…"
"What?"
"It stopped. The going forward. I would talk about the future – our future – and you would get this panicked look in your eyes and change the subject. And suddenly you were digging in your heels about doing those things with me that I like, as if you didn't want me to get any ideas that you were anything more than a selfish macho creep!"
Hyde could feel the argument slipping away from him. "Hey!"
"Do you remember that time we went to check out the mobile home Donna had rented for her and Eric when they were supposed to be getting married? I said if you ever rented a trailer for us, I'd leave you and you said something like Good, now I have an exit strategy."
"That was a joke!"
"Your jokes have always had too much of a basis in truth for my liking," Jackie said.
"Hey, if we're going to rehash stupid things we've said in the past, how about all your crap about leaving me if I didn't make enough money or couldn't give you the lifestyle you wanted."
Jackie was caught out. "Oh. You know I never meant that."
"Yeah right."
"No, really, I was just – "
"Joking?"
"Look, we're getting off track here," Jackie said, retreating from that line of questioning. "The main clue, the dead giveaway that you no longer loved me was how you would not even consider a future with me."
"Oh God, are we back to that steaming pile of –" he caught Jackie's look "roses again! I'm 19, Jackie! and you're 18! We're too young to be getting married and taking on mortgages and churning out brats."
"Yes, I know." Jackie agreed calmly.
"And I don't care if you – what did you say?"
"I know. We are too young to get married. I haven't even settled on a career yet. And I am way too smoking hot to start tearing down this body with child-bearing. I mean, pregnancy stretches things – and those things are never the same again!"
Hyde processed this. "Hang on. If you didn't want to get married, then what the hell was our break-up about?"
Jackie exhaled in exasperation. "It was about wanting to spend our lives together, you dope. It was about moving ahead in the same direction, growing up together and being there for each other. And yes, one day getting married. When we were both ready for it."
"Oh," Hyde said. "Is that what you meant?"
Jackie was just about to tell Steven Hyde exactly what category of brain dead commitment coward loser he fit into when he pulled her towards him, capturing her mouth with his own. Jackie's brain shut down at this point as the sensations her body had hungered for over the last 129 days were restored to her over-sensitised system. Damn, he was a good kisser. He must have learnt some Jedi mind tricks from Eric because suddenly she had no direction over her arms which had crept around his neck, one hand sliding into his curly hair.
Hyde pulled away a moment to look into Jackie's eyes, knowing her dazed expression was a mirror of his own. He tried to remember what they had been talking about – he had a vague memory they were fighting – when Jackie pulled his head back towards her and latched onto his mouth as though he was a drug she had been too long without.
